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It is. It is also very necessary in nature. Without fire, the detritus on the forest floor would become too deep and choke out anything on the ground that needs to grow. There are even pine cones that cannot disperse it's seeds unless there is a fire (think popcorn in a hot frying pan).

Fire suppression has remodeled much of the native prairie landscape of Wisconsin into more heavily forested terrain. It's hard to find a balance but completely cutting fire out of natural cycle is bound to change the terrain.

Until mother nature gets pissed and changes that motherfucker back with a fire of extremely high intensity due to all the fuel (branches, down timber, etc) that has built up. Side note: I'm an ex-wildland firefighter from Carlton, WA (which is currently a giant weenie roast).

Took place on October 8, 1871 in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. It caused the most deaths by fire in United States history, estimated between 1,500 and 2,500 deaths, and happened on the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire (supposedly caused by Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern).

Defiantly true. Most of the prairies are suffering woody invasion because of the removal of fire. Most grassland areas used to burn at least every 2-3 years.
The bastrop forest fire in Texas the only area of the lobb lolly pines still standing are where the state park was allowed to conduct prescribed burns. The areas that had a prescribed fire in the past 3 years the wildfire did not crown out destroying the forest.

Fire control is focused more on control now. Depending on the fire It could be allowed to burn itself out. Also, prescribed burns are done in many wilderness areas for ecological reasons instead of the age old keeping fires from happening at all.

"In studies of the 'snag-forest habitat' left by high-intensity burns, ecologists have found biodiversity equal to, or surpassing, the biodiversity found in old-growth forest. A mosaic of low-intensity and high-intensity burns makes for diverse and healthy forest. Burned trees are not waste. The snags, seed logs, and other deadwood that the Forest Service is rushing to truck to the mills are just the next generation of trees in the process of becoming. Fire frees up nutrients bound in woody material on the forest floor and makes them available, as ash, to new growth."

It is necessary in nature, but not with the frequency or severity we are seeing lately. My grandparents live in an area that has seen large fires several times in the past decade or two, and new growth doesn't have a chance to take off before a new fire hits. Leads to a great deal of erosion issues, especially.

The frequency and severity are due, at least partially, to the US Forest Service's old practice of always stopping forest fires. Because of this, decades of detritus have built up, so the fires are now more frequent, and more severe. If we had just let them burn naturally over the past decades, we wouldn't be in our current situation.

All along the west coast of North America there are huge swathes of forest that are mostly dead due to rampant beetle populations. The current beetle blight is perhaps the largest in history and is almost certainly a result of global warming and really promotes large and unpredictable fires.

Fire is a natural process but we've done plenty to make it more frequent and destructive.

Indeed on both counts. I'm from Colorado Springs and we've had two really bad fires in the last two years, first one burned 350 homes and last summer one burned 500 homes. Everyone knows at least a few people who lost their homes.

I hope the firefighters here and everywhere rarely have to buy their own beer at the bar.

My brother and about 20 firefighters left my hometown in NM. Damn worried about him but it's not his first rodeo. Very proud of him as well and the other firefighters heading that way, takes a lot of courage to do what they do.

There have been several fires in that area over the last couple decades. There was a real big one in 1994 in the same area that burned pretty much all of Tumwater Canyon, so I'm a bit surprised that its burning so extensively again.

I actually made this drive two weeks ago. I was driving from Montana to Seattle and right along that stretch of road, I realized that everything was green again and I thought to myself, "This is what I love about the Pacific Northwest." Sad to see it in flame, it's gorgeous in person.

In Spokane, we were told not to go outside on friday. It has since cleared up a bit and we can finally see blue sky. It's been pretty nasty as of late, and the fires aren't being contained as of last night.
Hopefully, there's been some improvement since.

I remember swimming in the Wenatchee river when I was a kid too. It was good times when a stray log from the sawmill up river would come down and people would jump off from them. Water was really cold tho.

Hi there, Oregon Wildland Firefighter/Type 6 Engineer checking in here.
For more detailed information on the fires burning in both Washington and Oregon right now go ahead and explore these two interagency sites:

This might be of interest to you folks. Some folks up here at UBC created a smoke forecast map (kinda like the ones for clouds you see on TV). You can go back in time, or see what the future (might) hold for your area. It says Western Canada but pretty much all of the northern portions of WA, ID, MT, and ND are visible too.

Air convection. As air gets hot, and large fires are REALLY hot, it can suck burning embers and such into the air where they can drift then fall. All that's left is how dry the other side is, and if the embers land in something flammable like dry grass.

Look at this bonfire. See how high the burning embers are traveling? Now imagine an entire forest on fire and the amount of air convection that can be occurring. Larger embers can travel incredible distances.

Yes they can. If the wind picks up it can blow burning needles, leaves, etc. over the roads and rivers. When they land on the other side it will then catch over there. This is called spotting and in really big fires spotting can occur miles away from the front of the fire.

You're in a very bad spot if you're close enough that it hurts. We try to build lines far enough back that we're gone when this type of blaze comes through. Fire burning through the canopy at a high rate of spread is known as a running crown fire and you had better be way the hell away from it.

I find all this very hard to picture. Visually, the fire looks not all that intense, like its very spread out but low intensity --not exactly a hundred foot wall of flame, more just a lot of glowing embers. I bet it feels a lot more menacing in person though.

Ex-wildland firefighter of 8 years here. For the most part, the smoke is much worse than the heat. Unless you're digging some really hot line (close to the edge of the fire), or cutting down a tree that's burning, or somewhere you're REALLY not supposed, the heat from the fire isn't much of a concern. The smoke though, man that shit can get rough. The worst is when it's not quite bad enough to pull the crew out, but bad enough that it gives you a headache and makes your eyes burn like hell.

They certainly are menacing in person. Some smoke columns rise 40,000 feet into the air, the fire generates its own weather (lightning, winds, "firewhirls," etc. Looking for spot fires isn't just about preventing the fire from spreading towards more populated areas, but about making sure firefighters aren't caught between multiple fires.

A friend of mine is there fighting fire right now. I have never met anyone as passionate as him about his job. And I am glad people like him exist. He is doing an incredible job and savings lives. Prayers to all those evacuated and for my friend. I hope everyone stays safe and it gets contained soon. Seriously a scary situation, especially when I have friends and family that live so close.

As an aside, I learned a couple years ago what exactly "containment" meant when reporting on wild-fires. It's the % of a fire around which there is a fire-line or some other natural or human-made boundary to stop its spread.

In Washington lately they have only been using tested containment. So while some these fires may have fifty percent of the fire with lines around it, they still report zero percent until they are sure the lines will hold with the worst conditions foreseeable.

I'm so, so grateful to these men and women. My family cabin that my grandfather built is only a few miles from the Chiwaukum Creek Fire that's up against Highway 2, and firefighters are the only thing keeping my favorite place on Earth safe. Thanks, guys! Stay safe!

For those of you outside of Washington state, Leavenworth is a major tourist attraction for us. It's a small, quaint little town in central Washington, and it's Bavarian themed. All of the buildings are made to look like a Bavarian mountain town. There is a large Oktoberfest celebration every year, complete with polka bands, yodelers, and laderhosen (spelling?).

I was there this weekend and it's really not too terrible. On friday it was impossible to see the surrounding hills from the smoke, but it got a lot better on saturday and sunday. I never saw any real ash come down while I was there.

I live over in Grant County, WA. There's a high way near some cliffs, and fire caught up there near some a cows. Cows have been jumping off the cliff on to the high way to avoid the fire. It really is some of the worst Washington has seen in a long while.

It seems that the entire eastern side of the state is on fire. I'm in Spokane and as of this morning there is a 13,000 acre fire not too many miles from here. It's zero percent contained so far. For the past week the smoke often blocked out the sun like a heavily overcast day. And of course the smell is everywhere.

My grandparents live in Leavenworth and the only fire that concerned them as much as this one is the one that happened in either 94 (can't remember which one) I'm not sure exactly where this picture was taken, but my grandparents can see the fire from their house.

The river in Tumwater Canyon is impassable to a boat like that. The only craft that go down the river there are psycho kayakers. (class 5 rapids for some of the year) it is too steep for anything except air attack. Very smoky here in town, helicopters are hitting it hard. The fire crews are heroes.

There's no real need. The fire has reached a containment line, all that's required is that it doesn't cross the line until it burns out.

The other thing is that they have to guard against embers, which can come from anywhere in the burning area. (I'm used to dry sclerophyll fires where the spotting distance can be kilometres. I don't know how these trees work, but I would guess that they also have a reasonable range.) Just putting the edge out doesn't do much. In fact, it makes it worse, since there's now an edge of unburnt fuel right next to a mass of heat.

Seems like the volume of water that that thing is putting out is puny compared to the size and intensity of the fire in question. Spray it on the fire-side shore there and it will probably be evaporated from the ground within half an hour.

I live in Wenatchee and I just want to say that Leavenworth isn't the only place being hit by forest fires. There are quite a number of fires going on in the area right now and at least one community has lost over 90 homes. Please pray for those who live in these areas, or if you don't pray, send out some good thoughts.

Also, I was out with my family eating lunch a few days ago and we saw a few firefighters from Montana having lunch. We wanted to pay for their meal, but they left before we could. I want to say how grateful we are for the firefighters who have traveled here from all over the state as well as other states to help with these devastating fires.

"Flames gather, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until fires death. I shall garner no fame, interview with no reporter, father no wildfires. I shall wear no medals and win no glory. I shall live and fight at my post. I am the hose in the darkness. I am the watcher on the river. I am the shield that guards the realms of Leavenworth. I pledge my life and honor to the Firemen's Watch, for this fire and all the fires to come."

As I wrote this out I realized how dumb it sounds but I made it this far so why not?

Seriously though, big praise to these men and women trying their best to fight this devastating fire.

And then spread by a deadly combination of hot, dry conditions and wind. There are several fires in central/eastern Washington. I'm far east of the fires, but we can smell them and the sky is clouded over with the smoke.

Hey fellow Eastern Washington friend! The smoke over here has been crazy. Every time I go outside I can just smell smoke. Now with the new fire outside of Cheney in Fishtrap, it's going to be even worse (for me at least.)
The only positive has been the smoke has helped cool the temperatures down.

If you're an EWU student, hello fellow Eagle! I'm on the westside for summer break but if Cheney gets burnt to the ground I'm going to be fucking pissed. I heard the Fishtrap fire was caused by some people shooting explosives. Crazy stuff.

Think Cheney is pretty safe as of late. They reduced the evac levels of everywhere except Scroggie Rd and the Fish Lake Resort (still level 3). Although they were warned that the fire is still very active. Closed the shelter at the middle school in Cheney at 4pm today.

modern wildfire control strategy is pretty much to just let it burn until it gets too close to a population center, which is the same as it has ever been. before organized publicly funded fire departments, the "firefighters" were just people who didn't want their houses to burn down.

the question you're probably wanting an answer to is what did they do before water pumps were a thing, and i suspect the answer to that is that a lot more stuff got burned.

In the days before firefighters, fires either burned until they ran out of fuels (tree line, rocky area, desert, river, swamp), a rain event, or until it rained or snowed in the fall. Often they were low intensity fires that resembled campfires, rather than house fires.